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Friday, January 11, 2019

Best Reads of 2018

Regardless of
year published (see here for 2018’s books, specifically), fiction
or non-fiction, or novel or collection, the following are the roughly
twenty books that stuck out in 2018. In no particular order, they
are:

A
Fortress in Solitude
by Jonathan Lethem
– An extraordinary bildungsroman, Lethem takes elements of his own
Brooklyn upbringing and melds them into the story of Dylan Ebdus’
growth and development into adulthood. Brooklyn evolving literally
under Dylan’s feet, it’s a clash of cultures, race, class, and
domestic life with a soft heart that leaves its mark on the reader
for its brutal honesty.

Uncommon
Miracles by Julie
C. Day – A
dynamic, wonderful collection of short stories, Day’s deceptively
simple hand guides readers through a forest of scarred hope and
silver linings. The focus on humanity throughout, themes such as
loss, personal paradigm shifts, and domestic issues permeate this
superb collection.

The
Drowning Girl by
Caitlin Kiernan –
Kiernan’s magnum opus (to date, at least—she is capable of
topping herself), she takes the main premise of The
Red Tree and
develops what was a good book into a great one. Entirely shifting
settings, this story of a seemingly schizophrenic woman tossed on the
waves of uncertainty and bad decision has all of the fine mystery
between allegory and reality a humanist novel could have.

334
by Thomas Disch –
A collection of novellas interwoven through a fictional NYC apartment
building, what Disch’s near future lacks in terms of action and
drama it doubles down on examining the potential effects of
technology on the commonalities of urban life, and by extension all
humanity. Deceivingly simple, this collection/novel slowly builds
momentum into its collage of life that is the final novella.

Time
Was by Ian McDonald
– I’ve said Ian McDonald is among the greatest science fiction
writers of all time, and while his oeuvre has become a little too
mainstream the past decade, 2018’s Time
Was nevertheless
cemented his greatness in my mind. The gorgeous prose used in
rendering a time-travel love story fully human (something extremely
few writers can do) showed yet another side of McDonald’s
prodigious talent, rounding him out as artist and master technician.
Like a Swiss Army knife, I now believe he can write in any style
successfully.

VALIS
by Philip K. Dick –
While a mess in terms of coherent ideas, this semi-autobiographical
novel of one man’s attempts at coming to terms with existence is
likely the most Dickian of PKD’s novels. In terms of prose it is
likewise among the best written of Dick’s novels, its erudition
shining all the brighter for it.

Space
Opera by Catherynne
Valente –
Containing several laugh out loud moments (at least for me), Space
Opera is uproariously, humorously humanitarian science fiction.
About a galactic talent show to decide the fate of Earth, our “hero”
inspires as many guffaws as tears when realizing how representative
some of his actions and behaviors are. This book will likely not
garner much attention given Valente’s singularity of style, but
there is worthwhile substance.

A
River in Darkness
by Masaji Ishikawa
– An insider’s view to North Korea, this memoir tells of
Ishikawa’s Korean upbringing in Japan, his family’s unfortunate
decision to move to the ‘socialist paradise’ of North Korea, and
the decades of oppression and suffering that followed, A
River in Darkness
confirms much of Western media’s depiction of the “People’s
Democratic Republic” through a personal lens difficult to shake or
forget.

On
Writing by Stephen
King – A
combination writing guide and memoir, King doesn’t stick rigidly to
either mode, making for a short but personal look into the
bestselling author’s view to writing good fiction while relating
the real life backdrop to his more famous works. I am generally not
a fan of King’s books, but this one is engaging for the
inside-outside variety of angles—the craft itself to the existence
which feeds it.

2001:
An Odyssey in Words
ed. by Ian Whates & Tom Hunter
– The central conceit seems cheap (all stories are 2,001 words
long), but the majority of stories are far from it. A surprisingly
engaging anthology, 2001 contains some of the best short science
fiction I’ve read in a while. Spirituality and wonder packed into
the condensed stories, it truly makes the reader wonder about the
effects of constraint.

Blood,
Sweat, and Pixels
by Jason Schreier –
An in-depth look at the development of sixteen video games, this
excellent piece of field journalism aims to give the average video
game player a backstage look at what developers, creators, producers,
sponsors, etc. do in order to get their games on the market.
Obviously not of interest to anyone who doesn’t play video games,
it nevertheless highlights in honest, informative fashion the blend
of art and business that is the modern phenomenon known as video
games.

Song
of Time by Ian
Macleod – Another
Ian and another best writer of the current generation, this story of
a dying composer who has the pure, naked body of a healthy young man
wash up on her shore one evening is a rich dip into dynamics and
questions, regrets and hopes of existence—an excellent novel.

The
Stone Tide by
Gareth Rees – A
dark, heavy, and wholly cathartic novel, The
Stone Tide is so
autobiographical as to make the reader wonder whether a new form of
fiction is being attempted. The dark personal issues of the main
character balanced against a lighter discussion of Cornwall and the
eccentric life of Aleister Crowley, if it weren’t for Nick
Harkaway’s Gnomon,
I likely would have chosen this as my favorite novel of 2018.

Ka:
Dar Oakley and the Ruin of Ymr
by John Crowley –
A lot of fiction anthropomorphizing dogs (a lot more than you would
think), Crowley’s Ka
shifts to crows and brings to life the perennial Dar Oakley.
Successfully portraying crow sentience (that gray area between
completely non-understandable animal and relatable yet simple human),
the novel is, in fact, more about the passage of time and what
humanity has done with the Earth we’ve inherited. A surprisingly
readable, powerful novel…

Global
Discontents by Noam
Chomsky – Concise
views into a number of Chomsky’s understandings and beliefs
regarding world and domestic American politics, the book is yet one
more reason Chomsky has the credibility and oversight unlike so few
other people—even in his 80s. You want the reality of the world,
read Chomsky.

Pottawatomie
Giant and Other Stories
by Andy Duncan –
Duncan’s second collection (and already hard to get your hands on),
it brings together some amazing pieces of short fiction—”The
Chief Designer”, “Close Encounters”, and the title story among
them. Some of the best short fiction written the past decade, Duncan
is criminally underappreciated—the variety, the true originality,
the authorial voicing, I could go on and on and on.

Strange
Bodiesby
Marcel Theroux
– One of those novels one almost forgets about the story given the
amazing quality of the prose, Strange Bodies tells of an ascetic
British professor who gets in over his head reviewing what is
purported to be newly discovered letters from his academic focus,
Samuel Johnson. Evolving into a story about the possible effects of
semantics on the mind, it is science fiction literally from a
literary perspective.

Nightfall
Berlin by Jack
Grimwood – My
beach read of the year. Grimwood is so smooth and suave in style
that I sometimes believe he could convert the most mundane, overused
tropes and stereotypes in fiction and make them feel something new
and fresh. This spy story set in post-WWII East Germany is precisely
that. Just relax and read.

Fuzzy
Dice by Paul Di
Filippo – As
gonzo-wack as self-actualization gets, Di Filippo's prodigious
imagination combined with his word skills makes for truly unique,
enjoyable, and amazingly enough, at the bottom level, human fiction.
I don't think even Jung dreamed the sub-conscious held such a path to
self-awareness.

Wolves
by Simon Ings
– Where most books place science and technology one side of the
good/bad fence, Wolves transcends the dichotomy to tell the story of
one man's personal struggles against the backdrop of technological
evolution. Though the book appeared for a moment on 2014's radar, it
disappeared quickly, and wrongfully so. This is great science
fiction.

Gnonom
by Nick Harkaway
- For
all the reasons stated above, this is my novel of the year. Yes,
Harkaway commits sins of writing. Yes, he sometimes cannot control
the fount of words bubbling inside of him. And yes the novel is
likely longer than it should be. But there is a power and passion for
writing and human existence at work here that is worth the time of
readers interested in intelligent, wildly prosaic fiction addressing
the creep and spread of technology. If you liked Mitchell’s The
Bone Clocks,
this is absolutely for you.